Levels, characters, boss fights, rules, sound — written into real files the kid can read. They direct an AI partner. They keep, revise, or undo every change. Friends play it from any browser.
Idea → AI proposes → playtest → keep, revise, undo.
Game-making is the same four moves on every project. The kid stays the director; the AI does the typing.
STEP 01
Idea
"Make the arrows feel scary."
— Theo, on Achilles
The kid names the change in their own words. No code, no syntax, no wizard chain.
STEP 02
AI proposes
Inkie · proposing 3 options
Add a charge-up sound before each shot.
Add camera shake + a red flash on near-miss.
Add a slow-mo telegraph for 200ms.
Three concrete moves. The kid picks one. That choice teaches taste.
STEP 03
Playtest
Changed
The change is live in the running game. The kid plays it. Doesn’t guess — plays.
STEP 04
Decision
KeepReviewUndo
Theo kept the shake. Undid the sound. "Too noisy." Every keep / revise / undo is snapshotted — nothing is lost.
The kid is the editor of every change. Authorship lives with the human.
What kind of game
Five genres. One starts already built.
Pick a genre profile and the studio scaffolds the right mechanics: jump physics, hit boxes, win conditions, music cues. Theo started on the platformer profile; his next game can be a different one with the same studio.
Featured · Theo’s pick
Platformer
Side-scrolling worlds with jumping, hazards, enemies, and boss fights. The genre Theo built four games in — the one with the most worked examples and wizards.
If your kid loves Mario, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, or anything with run-and-jump — this is where to start.
If your kid loves Baba Is You, Stephen’s Sausage Roll, Portal-style thinking.
Adventure
Connected rooms, NPCs to talk to, items to collect, branching paths, save points.
If your kid loves Zelda, Undertale, Hollow Knight side quests.
Racing
Tracks, lap times, AI opponents, drift physics, course design. Top-down or pseudo-3D.
If your kid loves Mario Kart, Trackmania, Forza Horizon.
Wizards · the game track
Pre-built moves your kid already knows by name.
Every wizard is a single named recipe. The kid runs add-enemy-archetype; the AI proposes the file changes; the kid keeps or reviews. The Game track ships about a dozen wizards — here are six that come up first.
add-level
Snaps in a new level with a starting room, hazards, and an exit. The kid sketches the shape; Inkie names the pieces and wires the transitions.
add-enemy-archetype
Spawns an enemy with health, attack patterns, and a clear tell. The kid names the archetype; Inkie handles the hit-box plumbing.
add-special-move
A signature ability that fires on a button. Dash, slam, shield, projectile. The kid picks the verb; Inkie wires the input and the cooldown.
add-power-up
A pickup that changes the rules briefly. Health, speed, double-jump, slow-mo. The kid names the effect; the studio scaffolds the spawn rule and the timer.
add-dialogue
An NPC speaking line that triggers on proximity or interaction. The kid writes the line; Inkie picks the right scene hook and timing.
theme-palette
Re-skin the game in a different look. Manga ink, retro pixel, neon, watercolor. The kid says "make it feel cold," Inkie proposes three palettes, the kid keeps one.
Plus add-animation, add-collision, add-save-system, add-tutorial, add-accessibility, debug-game, import-sprite, and add-manga-character — the rest of the Game-track recipe shelf. None of them are screens the kid has to learn; they show up in the chat when the kid’s prompt suggests them.
The quiet helpers
Two surfaces your kid doesn’t have to operate, and never has to learn.
Underneath the chat and the canvas, the studio runs two background loops — one watching the game’s engineering health, one watching how it plays. Both surface as read-only chips in the drawer. Kids notice them. Adults can audit them.
Engineering guardrails
The drawer shows a small status row: structure ok, performance watch: large sprite, assets clean, style consistent, ai-scope on track. No code to read. No errors to fix manually. Just a quiet feedback loop the kid can show their parent.
Playtest loop
Every time the kid runs their game, the studio tracks what they touched between runs. The Test tab shows "what changed since last playtest" so iteration becomes the move — not "did I break it?" Theo runs four or five playtests per session on Achilles.
Snapshot-based undo
Only the most recent AI change can be undone. Intentionally simple. Not Git-like — no branches, no merges, no commit history to teach. The kid clicks Undo last; the project rolls back to before the last AI proposal. Cleaner mental model for an 8-year-old.
Make / Test / Review / Ship
The kid’s drawer reorganizes the project into four kid-readable tabs. Make is where they direct the AI. Test is the playtest loop. Review is the change-summary plus Keep / Review / Undo. Ship is the parent-approval checklist before publishing.
Real example games · one real kid
Look what a 9-year-old brought to life.
Four games. Four real URLs. Built with the same Game track your kid will open this weekend.
Theo built a switch that turns every game into hand-drawn manga. Type the codeword on the hub and watch the whole studio shift styles. It’s an Easter egg — and it’s also a 9-year-old building a feature most adults wouldn’t think to imagine.
zeuson the hub
Manga mode
Pick a license. Build the first game.
Open the studio. Spawn a character. Add a hazard. Ten minutes in, your kid will be picking between three AI proposals like they’ve been doing it forever.
